Other examples

Only fantasy may limit the possibility of making improvised rocket artillery, as the following two pictures show

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Figure 9.5 Young Hezbollah soldiers manning an improvised vehicle intended for both indirect and direct rocket fire. The type of indirect rocket is not identified.

http://community.livejournal.com/shushpanzer_ru/?skip=20&tag=2007

Figure 9.6 A small truck discovered in the Basrah area in Iraq displaying built-in rocket

launching tubes in the floor of the platform. It is supposed that this unit is able to fire 122 mm BM-21 rockets. [29]

Another special example is shown below where a primitive rack, a piece of sheet metal and a car jack are put together to make a launcher for a 107 mm spin stabilized rocket.

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Figure 9.7 Improvised launcher for 107 mm rocket [Colin King]

Launchers can be made with even less sophistication than this. The next picture shows a “battery”

of 107 mm launcher pads that is simply dug out in the soil. The accuracy of such a system will, of course, be terrible, but the method may be satisfactory if the target is a larger area a few

kilometres away. In this particular case, the target was a US regional depot south of Mosul, Iraq.

107 mm spin stabilized rockets are, despite their limited range, very popular for improvised systems. The rocket is light (less than 20 kg), but with a powerful warhead. It is very robust, as it can be handled very roughly without losing performance. It can easily be carried by one man and is easy to hide. Moreover, spin stabilized rockets are less in need of accurate and sophisticated launchers than fin stabilized rockets. As we have seen, finned rockets also have to spin, although slowly, in order to compensate for some inherent inaccuracies. They have to draw their spin from the launcher, which put certain requirements on the launcher. Spin stabilized rockets draw their spin from themselves and are thus in less need for launcher quality.

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Figure 9.8 107 mm rocket with extremely simple launch pads[20]

The picture below shows a rocket with an apparently 122 mm nozzle section with quite large fins.

It is claimed to be a Qassam rocket found in Israel [30]. As this is originally made with wrap-around fins, the picture indicates that this is a incomplete replica of the 122 mm, or a reused motor section on which the original fins have been missing or damaged.

Figure 9.9 Finned and spin stabilized rocket wreck found in Israel.

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10 Organization

Rocket artillery is not just the rockets, the launchers, the carrying vehicles and the crewmen.

Without a supporting organization the rocket artillery may be of feeble use. The need for

ammunition supply is obvious, so is also the supply of fuel, lubricant, water, food and spare parts.

However, the most important component may be the collection information on where any

potential targets are located. Without such information, artillery will just become a logistic burden without ability to exploit its truly tremendous potential. This fact was bitterly experienced by the Iraqi Army in 2003. The Iraqi inventory of rocket artillery was very impressive, but they were quite unable to locate targets and were just serving as tempting targets for the coalition forces.

[31]

Like conventional gun artillery, rocket artillery has both an offensive and defensive role. The ability to engage in counter-battery fire may not be as good as for gun artillery, due to the lack of precision. On the other hand its ability to inflict damage on an extensive target area with a short time is surely impressive. As a consequence of this, multiple rocket forces are considered as a vital part to be organized at a high level, usually at divisional level or higher.

According to OPFOR FM 100-60 [32] the artillery group of the mechanized divisions (DAG – Divisional Artillery Group) has three battalions of 152 mm howitzer and one battalion of 122 mm MRL. The latter has 18 launchers organized in three batteries. In a battery, in addition to the 6 launchers, there are 2 command vehicles, 6 trucks, 5 officers and 56 enlisted men[33].

A battalion of light artillery rockets has the following requirement on manpower and vehicles according [34]:

- 18 launcher vehicles

- 8 command and control vehicles - 24 close-in defence units - 41 support trucks

The number of men directly dedicated to a launcher is mostly between 3 and 8. The most automated systems require less crew, while towed systems require a lot of manpower.

On the corps or army level there is one artillery brigade of howitzers only and an artillery regiment with either 122 mm or 220 mm organized in three battalions.

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300 mm MRL is considered a national asset and will be organized on an army group level in the event of a war. The army group will then contain an artillery division in which there will be an MRL brigade with 4 MRL battalions of either 220 mm or 300 mm. An artillery division may be designated to a particular army as the Army Artillery group (AAG). Each battalion has 3

batteries. The 220 mm has 6 launchers in each battery while 300 mm units have just 4 launchers.

At each level the howitzer seem to outnumber the MRL by 3 to 1.

Figure 10.1 Organization of an artillery division [25]

Figure 10.2 Organization of rocket brigade [25]

Rocket battalions have the same manpower requirement as battalions with self-propelled howitzer. As comparison, a towed artillery battalion has around 10% higher manpower demand.

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Traditionally, on the battlefield, the launchers were deployed with 15 – 20 m between each in a battery. However, improved FCS and communications leaves an opportunity to extend the separation. Within a battalion, the spacing between the batteries is 1 – 2 km.

The DAG may be located 3 – 6 km behind the forward edge of battle area (FEBA). For the AAG this distance may be increased to 8 km. It is of course paramount to keep this distance as small as possible in order to exploit the range of the systems. [35].

Tactical missiles may be organized on army level as separate SSM brigades with 12 – 24 launchers and a manpower of 1000 – 1500 men.

Considering insurgency forces, and referring to OPFOR 7-100.4 [34], 122 mm MRL may be organized with one battery subordinated to a brigade tactical group and as a part of a composite artillery battalion.

In a smaller insurgent group the single tube launchers may be found in so-called direct action cells together with light mortars and grenade launchers. Such a cell may consist of 13 men with 6 men assigned to the mortar and 6 men assigned to the rocket launcher. The single tube may be either 9P132 122 mm or 107 mm Type 63 or Type 85.